SEATTLE
Anti-police brutality protests in wake of WTO
By Jim
McMahan
Seattle
People across the city--participants and non-participants
alike--are in an uproar against the massive police attacks on
peaceful protesters at the World Trade Organization conference
here at the end of November and beginning of December. Their
concerns are shared internationally.
The cops staged a police riot in a vain attempt to
intimidate and stop protesters during the failed WTO
conference. It was a violation of the rights of those who were
attempting to speak for the rights of the poor and
disenfranchised throughout the world and against the
imperialist-dominated WTO. Police Chief Norman Stamper and
Assistant Chief Ed Joiner, who coordinated the police
mobilization for the WTO, have both resigned under fire.
They coordinated a combined force of Seattle and Tacoma
cops, cops from three other suburban departments, state
troopers, county cops, and 400 National Guard troops. These
troops used massive amounts of tear gas affecting tens of
thousands of people.
But the protesters disrupted the WTO meeting despite the
police attacks. The WTO's profits-before-people agenda
collapsed because of a mass turnout of nearly 10,000
civil-disobedience activists and supporters and 50,000 workers
marching from the AFL-CIO.
On Dec. 8, the Seattle City Council was forced to hold
hearings on police brutality against the WTO protesters. Six
hundred people thronged the meeting room, but only 200 could
get in.
Hundreds were forced to stand outside in the rain for hours.
The Direct Action Network held a people's hearing across the
street and took testimony from those who could not get in.
Jennifer Whitney, DAN medical team coordinator, told the
council that her 60-member medical team had treated 4,000
people at the protests.
"Many people had been shot in the head and face with rubber
bullets," Whitney said. "Many asthmatic people--not involved in
the protest--were exposed to the tear gas."
Ken Shulman, commissioner of the mayor's Seattle Commission
for Sexual Minorities, said he and a friend were tear-gassed
while eating dinner in a restaurant on Broadway in the gay
community of Capital Hill. He was trapped in the restaurant for
over an hour.
Outside the cops staged a big tear-gas attack. There were no
demonstrations in sight, Shulman said. After the gas attack,
the cops began harassing and/or arresting everyone on the
street in this heavily populated neighborhood.
Many others backed up Shulman's statement.
Black community activist K.L. Shannon was one of the
speakers at the rally outside. "What took place at the WTO
happens in the Black and Latino communities every day," she
said. "We need to join forces with them. We need a united front
against police brutality."
People called on Mayor Paul Schell to resign, and demanded
the recall of Prosecutor Mark Sidran. They also demanded a
civilian review board to control the police, and an independent
investigation of the WTO police brutality.
The City Council was forced to take damning testimony on
police brutality from hundreds of people in three-minute time
slots for eight hours--until midnight. The council was forced
to schedule another hearing in a much bigger room at Seattle
Center for the next week.
The politicians and the media are now confused in their
public support of the WTO. They are mostly railing against the
protesters who made their conference collapse. On Dec. 11, a
"police-appreciation day" rally was held downtown in an attempt
to shore up support for the WTO defenders, the fascistic cops.
It was held by the Police Officers Guild, and heavily
advertised by downtown business.
The Direct Action Network and the International Action
Center quickly organized a counter-protest. An IAC leaflet
read: "The Seattle Police are holding a rally to shore up their
image and rewrite the history of the Battle in Seattle. Don't
let them get away with it."
A demonstration of a hundred youths confronted the cop rally
and drowned it out with chants, "The whole world was watching;
they saw what you did!"
The role of the state as an organized repressive police
force to protect the capitalists against the demands of the
workers and poor has been laid bare.
The International Action Center and the Seattle/Mumia
Defense Committee both carried banners at the cop
counter-protest demanding freedom for political prisoner Mumia
Abu-Jamal in coordination with Dec. 11 protests nationwide.
This article is copyright under a Creative Commons License.
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